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First Tournament of the Year

Hello all, Shorereaper here, and it has been a while. While I really should start my return to blogging with a “What have I been up to while I was gone” I am instead going to summarize a small tournament I entered today. I hope this will be my triumphant return to blogging, after taking months off, but I am not making any promises.

First, I will start with a brief summary of the rules of the tournament. It was an escalation tournament, with round 1 being 500 points, round 2 being 1000 points, and round 3 being 2000 points. You were allowed 1 CAD, no allies or formations, and no Lords of War. Your 500-point list had to be included in your 1000-point list with now changes, and the 1000-point list had to be a part of your 2000-point list. So, if you had 7 Tac marines with a Melta gun in your 500 point list, that until would be in the 1000 and 2000 point list with no changes. It made for some interesting list building.

Most of my Painted Nids… and three random objective markers

The three missions were as follows:

Round 1:Table size: 4×4Deployment: Dawn of WarMission: 1 Objective will be placed by each player in their own deployment zone, 1 objective placed in the center of the table (which functions as a relic with all of the Relic special rules). The Relic is with three points; the other objectives are worth 2 points each.Secondary Objectives: Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker

Round 2:
Table size: 6×4Deployment: Clash of the line (Arrowhead. Short Table edge, form a triangle, furthest point is 24 inches from the center of the short table edge).Mission: Players set up 5 objectives in “No man’s land” following standard objective deployment rules. These objectives are scored at the start of the player turn and gain the controlling player 1 point.Secondary Objectives: Slay the Warlord, Attrition (Army which has destroyed the most enemy units gains a victory point)

Ok, now onto the “amazing” lists I decided to field. My 500-point list consisted of a Flying Hive Tyrant with 2 twin-linked devourers w/ Brainleech worms, 2 units of 10 Termagants, and an Exocrine. This was probably my most competitive list. At the 1000 point level, I added the Swarmlord, a Hive Crone, and 2 Biovores, and this is where my list started getting a little wacky, and not all that competitive. Though, at 1000 points, two flying MCs are pretty tough… or should have been, but I will get to that later.

At 2000 points, I thought I wrote a list that was more fun than competitive. Added to the 1000 point list was a full Tyrant Guard Brood to make the Swarmlord a little more survivable. I also added an Haruspex, a close combat MC that isn’t all that good at close combat. 2 Pyrovores… yea, I have no idea why. A venomthrope to give some units a cover save. Next I added a full brood of Raveners with rending claws because I love playing them and they are so very pretty. And the last addition was a Trygon Prime with adrenal glands. The theme was for my army to be fully painted and fun. Not so competitive.

My first round was a bye, but I got to play my 500 points against the Whit (the store owner) and his Chaos Marines. My two termagant squads fled off the board after failing a synapse check, and the Flying HT periled causing himself a wound. However, the only wound not cause by me on my own army was against the Exocrine in Close Combat. Really it was a fun, if silly game.

Loan survivors of the 500-point game.

My second round paired me up against the Tau player. This did not go well. He had a unit of three Skyrays, some broadsides, and 2 breacher squads. I know he had other units, but these three wrecked me. The Flying HT was hit with 12 missiles and just disappeared. A breacher squad shot the Swarmlord in the face, eliminating my other synapse creature. Everthing else seemed determined to fail leadership tests and just plant themselves on the board. I wasn’t tabled, but it was a bad loss. It was not a close game. I did score some points, but not enough to really call it a close game.

An Eldar army I never had to face… thankfully.

Round three was a bit of a surprise. Space Marines arrived via Drop Pod in my face. Neither of us thought we were going to have a good game. My opponent used ignores cover rounds on my venomthrope (and gave them rending, which I didn’t get), and took away my cover save bonus in turn 1. The hive guard brood disappeared shortly after (and the Swarmlord was left with 1 wound) thanks to three Grav-Centurions. After that though, things went very well for me. I took out the Grav-Centurions by making them take hits with the psychic scream. Biovores actually cause 2 wounds on his jump unit. The Swarmlord and the Raveners slaughtered his veteran squad in close combat (The Raveners were almost wiped out by his Ironclad Dred in the next few rounds of Close Combat). But really, after that first round of losses, my army stepped up and did a lot of damage. The Haruspex killed a drop pod and…. Well, that’s it really. My hive crone used vector strike on his flyer, giving me the advantage in aerial combat. It wasn’t pretty for the marines, even with all the grav weapons he had. Honestly, I think he deployed them a little close to me.

It was a fun tournament, and I managed to pull out second place (out of 5). Thank you to my opponents for some fun games… even when I was nearly tabled.